Sumários
Language and mind - categorisation and symbolism
19 Fevereiro 2025, 16:00 • Manuel João Ramos
The indefinition problem in what's proper to language and proper to thought: E. Benveniste's reading of the Categories, by Aristote. Detailed reading of the text. Sylvia Scribner's critical review of sylogism, in Ways of Thinking, Ways of Speaking A way forward from the linguistic-based, static and taxonomic models in ethnographic observation and in anthropological writing: Edmund Leach, Maurice Bloch, J.C. Gomes da Silva. Bibliography: E. Benveniste, Categories de la langue, categories de la pensée Maurice Bloch, How we think they think Edmund Leach, Political systems of Highland Burma Edmund Leach, Rethinking Anthropology J. C. Gomes da Silva, O Discurso contra si próprio J. Lave. Savagery of domesticated thought West, Science for the West, Myth for the rest? Reading for next class: G. Deleuze, La logique du sens
Language and mind - meaning and paradox
13 Fevereiro 2025, 16:00 • Manuel João Ramos
Dualism and concepts of ontological reality in Greek thought. A compared view with hindu thought (W. Doniger O'Flaherty) The dichotomous principles of Plato's philosophy: A. Lovejoy's criticism of the thisworldliness/thatworldliness divide in Plato and his heirs. The Greek way of thinking and making war: John Keegan's analysis of Greek dualism and their concepts of war. Judeo-Christian dualism and platonic thought. The way to the Calcedon. An explanation of the creed, and its ontological deirivatives. Bibliography: W. Doniger O'Flaherty, Dreams, illusion and other realities Reading for next class: E. Benveniste, Categories de la langue, categories de la pensée
The conundrums, continued
12 Fevereiro 2025, 16:00 • Manuel João Ramos
The notion of "category" in Anthropology and its logico-philosophical foundations. Boole, Cantor, Gödel - numbers, groups and paradoxes. Bertrand Russel's critical review of Aristotelian logics and metaphysics, and why it's important for a new grounding of anthropological thought. The language-mind debate: universality and substance. Categories of thought or categories of language. Bibliography: J. Barrow, The Book of Nothing. W. Folley, Anthropological Linguistics B. Russel, History of Western Philosophy E. Benveniste, Catégories de langue, catégories de pensée Reading for next class: W. Doniger O'Flaherty, Dreams, illusion and other realities
The conundrums of cognition
6 Fevereiro 2025, 16:00 • Manuel João Ramos
Problematisation of accepted anthropological concepts. From Plato to the doctrine of Chalcedon: the archaeology of the n otions of dualism in Western thought. Counter-examples from non-Chalcedonic Churches. Mind - Language - Culture The notion of "category" in Anthropology and its logico-philosophical foundations. A criticism of the Aristotelian groundings of anthropological categorisations. The language-mind debate. Where do symbols stand? A lost possibility: non-rousseauian anthropology in the 18th century: de Sade, Lametrie, Montesquieu, Kant. Bibliography: Reading for next class: - B. Russel, History of Western Philosophy - E. Benveniste, Catégories de langue, catégories de pensée
Presentation
5 Fevereiro 2025, 16:00 • Manuel João Ramos
Presentation of the course's programme, bibliography and system of evaluation. Introductory discussion of contemporary issues on symbolism and cognition. The need for an interdisciplinary approach (anthropology vis a vis the neurosciences) and the relevance of a revisited ethnography (Tim Ingold in the Debated Mind, and Maurice Bloch's connectivist views on cultural cognition). The problems of the Western-centric semantic (and rhetoric) conditioning of anthropological discourses. The limitations of a materialist approach to cognition. Example: António Damásio's Self comes to Mind: Constructing the conscious brain John Searle's critical review of Damasio's Self comes to mind Reading for next class: